As the proliferation of computers in modern society continues to grow, so too do the tasks that we delegate to them. Moreover, the complexity and size of computer programs required to perform such tasks also increases, as does the level of computer processing power required to properly execute these programs. Historically, the primary means implemented for increasing computer processing power has been to increase processor clock speed. In recent years, however, the ability to continually increase clock speeds to gain more processing power has curtailed. Thus, other avenues to improve computer performance have been adapted. One such adaptation is the use of multi-core processors. A multi-core processor is a processor that comprises a plurality of processing cores, oftentimes manufactured on a single silicon wafer.
In order to fully exploit the advantages of a multi-core processor, a computer program must be multithreaded. In contrast to traditional computer programs, which were primarily designed for serial execution using a single processing core, a multithreaded computer program comprises multiple threads of execution, generally referred to as “threads”, that may be executed in parallel using a plurality of processor cores. For example, one thread can be dynamically assigned to a first processor core, another thread can be dynamically assigned to a second processor core, and so on. Accordingly, the execution power of multiple processor cores can be combined to increase the speed at which application processes are executed.
The adaptation of multithreading in computer program design has not kept pace with the adaptation of multi-core processors. Indeed, many currently available computer programs are designed to effectively use at most one or two processor cores, while four-core (i.e. quad core) processors now are widely available. The complexities involved in designing dynamic multithreading architectures that effectively use more than one or two processor cores has shown to be a primary hindrance to the adaptation of such architectures. For example, when problems induced by race conditions such as heap corruption or confused program states occur in a multithreaded computer program, it can be very difficult and cumbersome to identify which thread or threads are responsible.